The Skyboom discontinued
by D. M. Domini
Summary: This story is no longer being updated. Please see my profile for "The Skyboom", which is a rewrite.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The world and characters in this story come from the Dragonriders of Pern ® series by Anne McCaffrey. I do not own them, I am merely playing with fictional super-duper cool Pernese Action Figures!

**Author's Note:** This is an Alternate Universe. It's also like a bowl of cereal so cracktastic that it Snap, Crackle, and Pops with extra fandom 'crack' in the crackle. Just so you are aware. I make no pretensions of plot here, but one may (or may not occur).

* * *

**The Skyboom**

**Chapter One**

It was foolish to be riding a dragon in the middle of a thunderstorm, although F'lon and Simanth seemed to find it some proof of manly dragonrider-ness, the former laughing challenges into the wind, and the latter simply roaring enthusiastically along with the thunder from beneath their legs. Robinton hung onto F'lon's wide leather belt, in an uncharacteristically dour mood, and prodded through his rather extensive vocabulary for variations of the words "idiot" and "moron" he could use on his friends once their feet were on firm, and hopefully dry, ground again. And if his gitar was soaked right through the casing, well then, he'd go well beyond that and they'd see why you should never, ever piss off a Harper.

Suddenly a crack of lightening went off practically on top of them, and Robinton nearly jumped out of his cold, wet hide at the sound, and then again when an eerie, fey light glowed around Simanth in some sort of aura for a few moments after. "What was that?" he demanded in F'lon's ear.

"Dragonfire," F'lon shouted back over the wind.

"No it's not," Robinton said. "That didn't come from Simanth."

"Figure of speech. It always happens within thunderstorms. It's harm--"

_CRACK!_

The world went blindingly white for a few moments, and then he smelled burning hair, hide, and the gigantic bronze beneath them let out a shriek of--fear?--before thrashing into something tall and woody with a splintering thunk, a few split seconds before pulling them all into the bitter cold of _between_.

* * *

_Six._

_Seven._

_Eight._

_Nine._ Wait, nine? There shouldn't be a nine when going through _between, _Robinton knew. Maybe he was counting fast, panic trying to gnaw open his nerves.

_Ten - one thousand,_ Robinton thought, trying to time his counting right. He could keep a regular beat. Although he'd never tried through the center of a thunderstorm, though...

_Eleven--no, twelve - one thousand._ That last thought had been long.

_Thirteen - one thousand_...and, light, heavenly sunshine, warm against wet, _between_-cold skin, raising steam from them like dawn on a dewy pasture.

Actually, part of it was F'lon's hair on fire, where it poked out of the hole in his helmet. F'lon seemed stunned, so Robinton clumsily dragged F'lon's goggles and helmet off, the buckles unfamiliar to his fingers and smothered the flame with his _bare hands_.

Something which he'd shove in F'lon's face once it was assured that they'd all stay alive.

Not surprisingly, it burned, but not too badly, and F'lon's gloved hands were trying to poke him in the eye as he flailed behind his head, no clue of why Robinton had taken off his headgear. He slapped them away. "Help Simanth, we're listing," he snapped at the disoriented bronze rider, who seemed to focus at the sound of his dragon's name. A good thing, considering Robinton could see a worrying dark stain on the dragon's head. A dragon's hide was soft, but thick, so he must have done a number on himself when he thrashed into that sky broom, to be bleeding so much ichor. They would need each other to get them to the ground safely.

Most of the land below was covered in heavy greenery, the like of which Robinton had never seen before. Of course, he wasn't a dragonrider so perhaps it was common in other parts of the world. But he couldn't think offhand of any known land quite like this one, with thick forests--nay, jungles all over.

Luckily he could see a coast line, off to his left, and made note of it in F'lon's ear. F'lon nodded, then shuddered, and Simanth tilted a bit drunkenly towards it.

Of course, Robinton would have liked to land on the beach, but perhaps that wasn't possible right now, as Simanth dropped into the ocean like a meteor, soaking them all.

They bobbed in the warm ocean waves for a while, all of them taking inventory of their various knocks and bruises, and Robinton noted F'lon's left boot was smoking, and pointed it out.

"Yeah, I think lightening hit me," F'lon said slightly slurringly, wiggling his toes through the smoking toe. The toes were a little pink, but otherwise unharmed. He seemed bemused to see them.

Simanth flapped his wings a bit against the water, and started paddling his way towards shore. F'lon laughed partway through this, hopefully at something his bronze had said. "He did."

"I did what?" Robinton asked.

"You told us it was a dumb idea."

"Oh no, I've not told you just how dumb an idea it was yet," Robinton said. "But make no worries, I'll enlighten you once we're ashore. And until the day I die, I'm going to tell people stories of how I had to put out your flaming, foolish head with my bare hands. Weyrleader indeed. I'd be surprised if you ever make it."

"My head's on fire?" F'lon asked, feeling it.

"Not anymore," Robinton replied. "Oh, and tell Simanth it's not a good idea to put his head in the water--the salt will sting."

The dragon heard him, and paused in his motion. _Thank you, Harper._ Simanth told him.

He blinked, surprised to hear the dragon speak to him as always, and sighed. "Thank you for getting us out of the sky safely. We don't happen to have any wine in your packs, do we, F'lon? I'd like to get drunk once we're on shore."

* * *

After man and dragon had had their wounds cleansed with fresh water from a stream and dulled with numbweed, both went to sleep, and left Robinton alone to stand guard in what he was more and more certain was a new, and possibly dangerous, but very fascinating, verdant land.

He stripped off his riding jacket, tunic, and shirt to dry, along with his boots and socks, and carefully uncased his gitar to inspect it, taking care not to let the sand get in it. Surprisingly, it didn't have any water damage at all. His mother was right, these cases were worth their weight in marks. He played a quick, quiet little ditty to make sure all was well, then packed it away again.

There was no wine in F'lon's packs, nor food, which wasn't all that surprising, but he did have two empty canteens, which Robinton filled in the stream, and a small compact pack with basic first aid (felis juice, bandages, needle and thread, and the numbweed they had already used) and basic tools; a large hunting knife, a flint and striker, a few matches wrapped in waxed paper. Robinton contemplated hunting his own food, but then realized it would be a lot of work when they'd likely just go _between_ back to civilization once dragon and rider awoke. Or would eat a haunch of whatever Simanth could catch, if there were herdbeasts around anywhere.

Still, he was hungry, so he dug up some tubers he found growing in the muck at the edge of the stream, washed them off, built a fire, and hoped his culinary skills wouldn't poison them all.

Some time later F'lon woke up, and half stumbled over to Robinton to sprawl on the sand next to him. He still wore his riding gear, and Robinton wondered how he wasn't boiling in it, yet.

"What did we drink?" F'lon asked him. "My head feels like Simanth is sitting on it. I'm not sure I've ever had a worse hangover then this."

"We haven't drunk anything--you got yourself hit by lightening," Robinton said.

"I know you wouldn't, dearheart," F'lon said, presumably to some comment of Simanth's. "We drank white lightening?" F'lon asked Robinton. "I thought you said that stuff wasn't fit for pigs."

Robinton leaned over and looked F'lon in the eyes, covering one, then the other, to see how the pupils reacted. They seemed to react normally, expanding and contracting in the middle of the yellow irises, even if he looked a bit woozy still. Then he yanked his head down by the ears to inspect the top of his head.

"Hey!"

"Hold still..." F'lon desperately needed a haircut now, to even out the burned spots, and seemed to have a small blister on his scalp, but seemed, externally, otherwise fine. "Humph. You got hit by lightning. As in, those bright lights that flash in the sky and go boom during thunderstorms."

"Interesting. How did that happen?"

"You decided it would be fun to go flying in a thunderstorm. "

"Why did I decide that?"

"_I_ don't know, go ask Simanth. He's the one that shares your thoughts!"

F'lon glanced over at the large, bronze dragon. "Simanth doesn't know."

"That makes three of us, then," Robinton said, and used a stick to prod a hot, steaming tuber out of the sand under the fire. "Here, try this."

"Is it edible?"

Robinton grinned. "Sure, why not?"

F'lon started stripping off the rest of his riding gear, finally aware of the heat. "I'm not sure that's the reply I want when I ask if something's edible," he said, tossing one boot, then the other, down the beach to lay in the sand to presumably bake dry in the sun. Then he pulled out his belt knife, stabbed the tuber through the middle of it, and went to wash the sand off of it in the stream. He was carefully trying to nibble on one end of it when he came back, but wasn't making much process due to the heat still rising from it.

Robinton dug his own tuber out of the fire, washed it in the stream as well, and set it upon a leaf upon a flat rock so he could slice it into pieces so it would cool faster. F'lon leaned over and nicked a piece, and went over to his bronze and offered it to him. Simanth, however, seemed to refuse.

"I thought you said you wanted some," F'lon said, surprised. Then he seemed to listen to his dragon's comment, and snorted. "Oh, come on. Robinton! You don't mind if Simanth has some, do you?"

Ah. Simanth had probably protested F'lar's stealing of Robinton's food. He suppressed a smile, and waved the concern away. "I'm not going to begrudge Simanth a bite of food." Although to a dragon of his size, it was less a bite and more a speck that would likely get caught in one of his teeth.

"See?" F'lon said, and carefully blew on the slice of tuber to make sure it was cool before setting it on Simanth's great tongue when the bronze opened his mouth slightly. Then he rejoined Robinton, and decided to copycat Robinton's technique of cutting his food up into slices to cool faster.

They ate in silence for a while. The tubers were soft enough...well, mostly, and a bit of crunch in the center wasn't going to hurt them. They were a bit bland. The water from the stream tasted faintly of algae and dirt, but washed their meal down well enough.

"Where are we?" Robinton asked, eventually.

F'lon looked embarrassed. "I don't know," he confessed. There was also a strange undercurrent to his voice, in addition to the humiliation he was obviously feeling.

Robinton chewed a crunchier slice of tuber thoughtfully. As far as he understood it, dragons had to fly straight at least once to a destination in order to acquire an adequate visualization of the place. That was the reason F'lon had suddenly appeared at the Harper Hall one day to drag him out of his classes in order to boast about his dragon. F'lon's official business at Fort and the Harper Hall had been to learn what they looked like, so he and his dragon could _between_ their way there, if need be. But perhaps Robinton had understood it wrong; _he_ wasn't a dragonrider, and given the look on the other man's face, he wasn't going to push the issue. "Well, in any event, this is a very beautiful place. A little warm for this time of year--not that I'm complaining. But I don't think I've ever seen a sea quite that color."

"Yeah. I mean, no, you're right, that color is unusual. I don't recognize some of these plants, either; do you want to explore a little?"

"Why not?"

"When do you have to be back at the Hall? I know Master Gennell has you running around like a lunatic these days--"

"I've been given the afternoon off; as long as we're back before dusk, nobody will particularly care."

F'lon shaded his eyes and looked up at the sky. "We've a bit of time then. How are you feeling Simanth?"

The dragon blew out a gusty sigh, but rose to his feet, a dusting of pale sand clinging to his belly.

"I feel the same; that lightening hit us hard, didn't it?"

"Do you feel we should go back?" Robinton asked. In his untrained estimation, F'lon didn't seem as battered as one might have thought a man hit by lightening would have, and if Simanth was really hurt F'lon wouldn't be acting so casually. But it was possible that--

"--oh no, no. I ache a bit. But I want to see this place! Might as well do a bit of looking around while we're here."

Robinton watched his friend for a moment, then shrugged.

* * *

The dusk air was cooling off when they pulled on their riding gear, although not quite cool enough to make the heavy wherhide comfortable in this unseasonable heat. But it wasn't like they were going to fly straight or anything, so Robinton endured it without comment and made sure his gitar was stowed away properly. It was always a worry during the hotter days that the wood would crack when suddenly exposed to _between_. It happened to the best of instruments.

F'lon and Simanth did not play any games this time when taking off, and flew upwards until they were at a distance acceptable for going _between_ from. Then they hovered, and F'lon reached down to pat Simanth's neck before the cold of _between_ enveloped them.

_One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand,_ Robinton chanted to himself, determined to keep the beat this time. And apparently he did; at eight one-thousand, the world appeared around them again, and a few specks of light below from glows and fires marked out where Ford Hold and the Harper Hall existed below.

Simanth began to drop, headed for the Harper Hall courtyard, but then changed direction suddenly and made a low noise in his throat. Robinton saw F'lon pat the bronze's neck comfortingly again, and they were set down in front of the great front doors of the Hall instead a few moments later, in a small cloud of dust kicked up by the dragon's back-winging.

The dusk was cooler here, a fact that Robinton was grateful for. He dismounted Simanth, caught the gitar after F'lon twisted around and unhooked it and carefully held it down for him, and then, with a flourishing bow, thanked the great bronze and his rider for today's adventure. Towards the bronze he was entirely sincere, but there were notes of amusement and sarcasm towards the bronzerider.

F'lon looked appropriately embarrassed, as far as Robinton could tell when the man's face was hidden behind goggles and the light was nearly gone.

Then Robinton quickly strode away to a distance suitable for watching the pair leave, and gazed after them until either the darkness or _between_ swallowed them up again. Then he sighed, and turned back to the hall. His mother would laugh herself sick at this particular mis-adventure.

Robinton climbed the stairs to the hall, ducked in the partially open front door, and nodded to the apprentice on duty, whom he didn't recognize. Then he paused, feeling as if he were making a great error. But for the life of him, he couldn't put his finger on it. He glanced at the apprentice again, wondering if he'd promised the boy something or other, or knew him or maybe his kin from somewhere, but the boy was tiredly studying a vocal score that Robinton knew was a hideous little piece of music, although it was effective for some types of vocalists for demonstrating a certain voice technique.

But the sense of dis-ease had nothing to do with the boy. Robinton walked out of the main corridor, headed for his mother's quarters, but the moment he turned out of the main hallway, he stopped again. There was something _wrong _here. Aside from the decor--Master Gennell was notorious for getting tired of the current decor and pulling something so ancient it was brand new out of storage and plastering it all over the walls.

Robinton backed out of the side corridor so he was back in the entry way.

"Are you lost, sir?" the apprentice called, finally taking note--or deciding to act--on his obvious confusion.

"I, ah, no." _I've lived in this Hall most of my life--how could I be lost?_ He didn't let the sarcastic words out, however. Boy looked tired enough as it was. "I've decided I'm going to grab a bite to eat, before going to bed," Robinton said. It felt...safest, somehow, and his stomach was indeed purring along in a prelude to outright angry growling. So he followed his belly to the kitchens, the sense of being vastly in error still perusing him, but his feet gradually stuttered to a stop since it felt as if a monster out of a story was about to leap out and--

Something large and heavy suddenly flapped directly at his head and he made a sound that was quite possibly unmanly and bolted three long steps out of the way and nearly bowled over a woman who was his own age or perhaps slightly older. "Pardon me!" he said, putting his hands on the side of either shoulder just in case he _had_ managed to knock her over, but she seemed to be standing quite steadily in place, so he let her go and hoped she hadn't heard that sound he'd made--or had ascribed it to the _thing_...that...that wasn't _there_ anymore.

Bloody shards and red stars...

"Are you all right?" the woman asked him.

Robinton glanced at her. She was tall, with blue eyes, and an explosion of dark wavy hair that was nominally contained within a tail. She was angular and austere in build, a handsome woman rather than a beauty. She also had a Master's knot on her shoulder, which made Robinton suddenly feel worried for her. It wasn't unknown for a Singer to throw on her lover's shirt, knots and all, although this woman's beau must be as skinny as she was to wear that tunic. But some of the more chauvinistic Masters would go spare to see it, and that inevitably ended up in a brawl of some sort as half the hall retaliated against the boor that threatened the poor Singer.

Robinton reflected that the Hall needed improvement in that area. His mother, for example, often carried out all the duties of a Harper, barring the judicial ones, but to give her a Master's knot? Preposterous! Never mind that she was widely lauded as one of the most popular Singers ever to walk Pern. Actually acknowledging that her talents were equal to any other Harper's would get some untalented, incompetent wher-faced imbecile's underthings in a twist, and...

Well. Robinton sighed. No need to get angry here and now. Besides, he suspected the sudden anger was rooted in his fears of a moment ago, and his embarrassment at someone seeing him like that. So he swallowed it, along with his pride. "I feel as if the universe has made a grievous accounting error somewhere," he told her. "I'm unsure if that falls under the heading of 'all right'. Usually this type of thing only happens when I manage to quaff a white wine against my better judgment, but I'm afraid the last thing I drank was some tepid brackish water. Which was why I was headed towards the kitchens. But I could have sworn something tried to land on my head a few moments ago--the apprentices didn't let loose a flock of geese in here again, did they?"

The woman didn't actually laugh, but her eyes were bright with it. "That would have been Diver," the woman said. Robinton noted she was a mezzo-soprano. "Bronze firelizard. He was probably aiming for your shoulder, but your head got in the way."

"How terribly inconvenient for him," Robinton said.

"Your shrieking and running away didn't help either; they usually like to land on stationary targets." The side of her mouth quirked up.

So she'd noticed. He could feel a subtle blush rise in his cheeks, which he tried to ignore. But--firelizards? It seemed as improbable to have those creatures flying about the hall as it would to have a flock of geese trying to land on his head and then vanishing as if going _between_...oh. So that's what had happened to it.

"Does the Master Harper know about them?" Robinton asked, and then felt somewhat silly for asking it. How, exactly, could one miss something that looked like a miniature dragon attempting a landing on one's head? Unless that sort of thing only happened to him.

The woman's eyes lost their amusement, and her smile faded. "Which Master Harper?" she asked after a moment, her voice holding a queer note.

The feeling of unease came back again. He thought of holding his tongue, of backtracking and seeing if, by chance, F'lon and Simanth had come back. But in all likelihood, the pair were back in Benden, seeing a Healer for a second opinion on their lightening-struck wounds. "Master Gennell," he said quietly.

The expression on the woman's face immediately became conflicted, several emotions flickering over it in quick succession until it smoothed out and became blank. Not the best actress he'd ever seen, but he didn't know her well enough to decipher that blank mask so it worked regardless. "I think perhaps...you should come with me."

"This isn't concerning these...firelizards anymore, is it?" Robinton asked.

"No. Not really." She carefully closed one hand around his bicep, as if the touch might frighten him away, or break something in him...or her...and led him to the upper level of the Hall.

* * *

The woman left him in the Master Harper's office. But it was obvious from the decor that an entirely different man called this office his; redecorating the Hall at large with scenery tapestries was one thing...but you couldn't erase a man's personality and touch from his quarters nearly as easily. If Gennell still called these quarters home, Robinton would eat his gitar, case and all.

There were a few choices of seating in the room; a well-worn but comfortable looking leather couch against one wall, under a set of cupboards Robinton didn't recall as having been there before. A set of wooden armchairs before the desk. A stool to one side of the desk, probably either well-regarded or well-hated by apprentices, depending on this Master's leadership style. Seating himself in any of the choices didn't seem...quite right, and besides he hadn't been invited to sit down. So he paced around the room in lieu of examining it, because he knew some Masters were touchy about others looking at their things, even if they left them sitting around for all to come upon.

Well. He mostly didn't examine things. Could he help it if a half-written score sitting in a pile at the edge of the desk caught his eye? It was a catchy tune, and he ran his left fingers through the fingerings absently, before moving away to pace around again.

After a while, he noticed that up in the rafters, in the dark, were some more of the firelizards. Two golds, watching him as intently as he'd ever seen a firelizard stare at someone from afar. Also a bronze, and a...brown? It was difficult to tell, as they were far away from the glows. He also thought he saw something blue, but perhaps something Harperish was tucked into the rafters. "Hello," he said softly. They were rather fascinating, when they weren't flapping at his head exactly on cue when he was already feeling jittery, and scaring the red right out of his blood.

They didn't make a sound, just stared at him, blue and green hued eyes whirling slowly.

Then the door to the Master Harper's personal quarters opened suddenly, drawing Robinton's gaze, and a tall man, taller even than himself, emerged, and their gazes caught.

Shock. It was quickly masked, and masked much more skillfully than the woman's reactions, but Robinton saw it, and couldn't help but wonder--and fear, just a bit--the reasons why they were so...emotionally affected by seeing him.

It was probably connected to the reason he felt like some grievous error had occurred, whatever reason had caused Gennell to no longer be Master Harper, to cause those...gem-like creatures flying about within the Hall to create little to no comment from the woman. It was also probably connected to the real reason the decor had changed abruptly, and that almost made him laugh--how human of him to automatically ascribe the most likely culprit to that change, Master Gennell in this case, until all this other evidence suggested in a loud, blinding scream that the decor had nothing to do with Gennell's whims.

And then, Robinton suddenly wondered if, if he walked down the hall to the Masters' quarters, would he find his mother and Petiron in the appropriate rooms? Or would there be strangers there, staring up at him and his intrusion as he walked into their private rooms and lives?

Then the man, brown eyed, and brown haired, and brown skin, came up to him, and clasped Robinton's hand in his. He had a warm, confident clasp, but the words that came out of his mouth didn't quite match the confidence. "Master Robinton?" he asked.

Master? Oh no, no, no, no, he was still studying his...and he hadn't walked...Robinton took his hand back and patted down his pockets, and finally withdrew a rather wrinkled and bedraggled Journeyman's knot. "I'm afraid not, Master Harper," he said, and held up the rank knot.

"Oh," the man said in confusion. "You're not Robinton?"

"I _am_ Robinton," Robinton said. "But it's a little premature to call me a Master." He waved the Journeyman's knot like a small flag to call attention to it. Then he blinked and realized it might work better if he just put the blasted thing on his shoulder. Which he did.

The Harper in front of him blinked, then threw back his head and laughed. And laughed. And laughed, and finally stumbled back to sit on the edge of his desk, managing to avoid setting his rump down on open sand by mere inches, still laughing the entire time.

Robinton smiled wanly, game for understanding the joke, if there was one. Then he realized..."How did you know my name?" he asked.

"Menolly told me."

"Is that the woman's name? With the firelizards?"

"'That woman with the firelizards' works too," the Master Harper told him, just as the door into the private quarters opened again, and the woman entered the room. "I use it all the time. 'Woman! With the firelizards!'" This he directed at her.

She rolled her eyes.

"Since she obviously didn't introduce herself, Mast...Jour..." he paused, as if momentarily flummoxed by his inability to get the appropriate title out. "May I call you Robinton? Just...'Robinton'?"

Robinton spread his hands to indicate that he was well and truly lost here, and hadn't the faintest as to what was actually happening. A little informality wasn't likely to hurt things. "I imagine you could call me whatever you want. 'You there!' 'Man without firelizards!' 'Screaming Man!'" He threw out a few suggestions.

"Wha--?" the Master Harper looked a bit confused, but the woman--Menolly--laughed in delight.

"Well, this _is_ the Harper Hall, I expect sooner or later it will get out that I had a firelizard try to land on my head and I ran away screaming. It's usually not as bad if you admit it straight out. Gets it out of the way and all, deflates their sails 'fore the ship even leaves port. Don't ask me why I'm using nautical similes," he added, while shaking his head.

"It might be prudent to use another name," Menolly suggested to Robinton, while the Master Harper started to laugh again.

"You don't like the sound of 'Screaming Man'?" Robinton asked her in jest. "Or is my given name taboo?"

"Well, it's not _that_--"

The Master Harper shook his head. "It will be the worst kept secret ever."

"You think?" Menolly asked him, cocking her head to the side and regarding him.

The Master Harper just nodded, and seemed thoughtful.

So Robinton took the opening, and said, "I don't mean to be a bother, but I seem to only have bits and pieces of this puzzle here, and I think I'm blind to boot, and if you've ever tried it, putting a puzzle together by touch alone is difficult to do."

Both of them turned to look at him expectantly, which wasn't quite what Robinton was expecting, but he forged on, ticking off letters on his fingertips.

"A--I don't believe I've met either of you, but you obviously have some knowledge of me. B--the Harper Hall is here, but the decor is different, and Master Gennell is obviously not the Master Harper for reasons unknown to me. C--there are tame firelizards here. D--Menolly doesn't think it would be good for me to go by my own name. E--please don't take this the wrong way, I don't mean offense, but you're wearing a rank knot, Menolly, and it would take a very oddly proportioned gentleman to fit into your tunic." Menolly was turning a shade of red, and Robinton hoped it wasn't because she was upset or angry with him now. "The only things I can think of that would explain all of these things are that I'm having a very bizarre lucid dream, or that I ingested an overdose of felis juice and I am now severely hallucinating, and the Healers are probably tying me to a bed even as we speak so I don't hurt myself. Or, as I hallucinate speaking to you." Robinton paused. "There's also a small possibility that someone poisoned me," he added in a smaller voice, thinking of Fax. "Which could also induce--"

"How did you get to the Hall?" Menolly asked, cutting him off, but gently.

"F'lon and Simanth," Robinton said. "They are a bronze pair from Benden," he added, in case the information was relevant.

"Where were you before that?"

Robinton shook his head. "A jungle somewhere, beach, by the ocean. F'lon didn't know where it was."

"How did you get there?" the Master Harper asked.

"Through _between_. Although we took off in a storm; F'lon was hit by lightening, and Simanth got partially tangled in a skybroom."

They stared at him, and then Menolly walked off and scrabbled in a bin for some hide, while the Master Harper rubbed his chin. "Where did they go after they dropped you here?"

"I presume home," Robinton said.

"It's probably too late to prevent the initial brouha, Sebell," Menolly said. "But this might help, if it gets to the right person. I'm going to send Beauty to F'nor, and let him know."

"You don't think F'lar will recognize his own...?" The Master Harper--presumably Sebell--replied.

"I'm more thinking of Ramoth's possible reaction to a dragonrider she doesn't know. F'nor will likely be close enough to get their attention, but not as immediately occupied if Ramoth isn't happy about this as F'lar might be. Or, on the other hand, I could be entirely wrong and they're all having klah and bubbly pies right about now, listening to the Weyrharper's latest tunes."

"Better safe than sorry. Write a copy for Kimi; we'll send her to F'lar, just in case. I'll get our riding gear."

"I'm afraid I'm lost again," Robinton interjected.

Sebell grimaced. "Once we talk to the Benden Weyrleaders, we'll have a better handle on what we can tell you. You see--you never mentioned this little incident to us."

Robinton tried to process this and failed. "And I should have?" he asked, cluelessly.

"It's typically good form to," Menolly said. "Although I suppose you could have forgotten, you always had a lot on your mind. You can leave the gitar here--"

"No, you should take it," Sebell said.

Menolly gave Sebell a quizzical look, then shrugged.

Robinton chose to keep his gitar with him, and watched as Menolly strapped little harnesses around the two golden firelizards, who had flown down to the table, and then instructed the one called Beauty to go to F'nor, and the one called Kimi to go to F'lar. Then they waited a while, before Menolly suddenly said, "F'nor is here," as eerily as any dragonrider, and the three of them trooped down to meet them.

* * *

**Author's Notes, part II:**

1) There's a good chance of this story being abandoned. It's a cracktastic premise, and I'm unsure if I have the talent to pull it off. I fear my Robinton isn't strong enough. So, just a warning.

2) My Pern canon is not as strong as my Talent canon. However, I'm going to be a jerk here and say that if anyone has issues with my word choices (ie, "that word isn't used on Pern!"), please don't tell me. It drives me insane. I just want to tell a story about characters I love without having to trip over the the truncated vocabulary AMC implemented for this world. She's quite good at writing, say, Robinton, and still giving him an eloquent vocabulary (hmm, I wonder where she got her talent? ;) ), but the words that Pernese CAN'T use are random (runners meaning horses, canines meaning dogs) that once you get beyond the immediate use (ie, you can call someone a dog or cur on Earth, but because Pernese call them 'canines', can you still call a person a "dog" or "cur" on Pern and have it be canon? The words are no longer really referring to the animal...) it's really hard for me to keep up.

3) I have other fics! They are Talent fanfiction, however. Clicky clicky on my profile to find them.

4) You may encounter Robinton/Menolly shipping here. Reallly depends on how it turns out, and if I think my skill is up to it. I would just go read H. S. Shore's stuff to get my R/M fix, but they haven't updated their R/M fics in...forever. :( :sad:

5) Sorry about the partial almost-rant in #2. Heh. All other sorts of reviews should be just fine with me. In fact, if you can nit-pick my Characterization, I would love that. I always worry that my characters aren't good enough. Except in the case of Sebell, who doesn't get much of a personality in canon. :coughRobintonClonecough: :( Poor Sebell...you're every fan-writer's tool now! We can shape you however we want, mwa ha ha ha!

6) NAME corrections are welcome as well. I worry about the dragon names, particularly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"I can't tell you." F'lon's eyes pleaded with Robinton to understand.

Robinton sat back on the leather couch, and propped his boots up on a nearby bench that had conveniently wandered away from the table it belonged to, probably for this very purpose. "So we got here, wherever here is, due to a mishap going _between_, but nobody's telling me anything because I am not a dragonrider?"

"Possibly," F'lon said.

"That's a lie," Robinton said. "Because the two Harpers I met I think had a bloody good idea of what has happened, judging from their actions."

"Have _they_ told you?"

"No, they wanted to come and speak to the dragonriders first," Robinton said. Then he grimaced at the anger in his tone. "I'm sorry, their actions are not your fault, F'lon." He rubbed his brows. "Perhaps I'm becoming paranoid."

"How so?"

"We do--something--strange _between_. We come to our respective homes, or so we think. And when we discover we've not actually come home, we're both whisked to the highest-ranked people in the Hall and in the Weyr, not even allowed for a second to talk to anyone else...and we're told precisely nothing. What are they hiding from us?"

F'lon made a face. "Why are they hiding it from _you_?"

"You don't think it's because I'm not a dragonrider? Or have you been gallivanting around the Weyr, meeting people who've obviously been here for Turns, that you've somehow never met before?"

"I haven't thought it all through yet, Rob. I mean, they told me what happened, and told me not to let you know, and because of what they told me...they're right. I can't let you know. I'm sorry. Have you tried going outside? I don't think they're forcing us to stay in here. _You_. To stay here."

"I haven't tried," Robinton admitted. "I'll stay here. For now."

F'lon sighed. "Well if you're just going to stay in here anyway, why are you complaining?" He came over and sat on the bench next to Robinton's feet. "Are you going to write a song about me? About a stupid wherry-brained dragonrider who flew his dragon in a thunderstorm and came out of _between_ who-knows-where?"

"Maybe," Robinton said, with a wicked smile. "I'm still studying my subject in order to wring the most embarrassment and humiliation out of this as I can."

F'lon laughed. "I will never live this down with you, will I?"

"Not as long as I draw breath, my friend."

"Ah, good. I'm still your friend," F'lon joked, although the worry in his eyes betrayed that perhaps he wasn't entirely joking all the way. "I'm glad to know that."

"The fact that I'm sitting so calmly in this room shows that I am still your friend. They seem like nice enough people, but their actions lead to mistrust." Robinton shot F'lon a half grin. "Keep my trust, F'lon, and we'll be fine." Then he yawned, and changed the subject. "What do you think of those little firelizards?"

"I don't know, I haven't really seen them up close too much. You?"

"They're quite intelligent! Not like a dragon, obviously, but they're smart enough. Smarter than a runner."

"Most things are smarter than runners," F'lon said.

"Very few things act intelligently, you know, when facing several tons of hungry fire-breathing dragon," Robinton said wryly. "Including humans."

The bronze rider gave an expressive shrug.

Robinton imitated him, then continued. "They make the most fascinating array of sounds. I wonder if you could get them to sing. Menolly has a little gold, her name is Beauty. She sat on her shoulder, with her tail around her neck like a torc. She would _accentuate_ Menolly's words with sounds. They were very faint, but there. _Pianissimo_. And then she realized I was staring at her and stopped."

"Menolly, or the firelizard?" F'lon asked.

"The firelizard."

F'lon snorted and said nothing.

"She might have stared back at me; it was difficult to tell," Robinton said, as the door at the other side of the room opened, and five people came in: Harpers Sebell and Menolly (who was indeed a Master Craftswoman, to Robinton's delight), and dragonriders F'lar, Lessa, and F'nor, riders of bronze Mnemoth, gold Ramoth, and brown Canth respectively.

"Hello," F'lon said to the unexpected crowd.

"Greetings and salutations," Robinton said as sincerely and with as straight a face as he could manage. However, it was a bit intimidating to have everyone suddenly in the room. And dismaying. Particularly in the way that F'lar, who had an uncanny similarity to F'lon--if F'lon lost his almost ever-present smile and became far more serious and brooding--was staring at him as if he suspected Robinton was hiding something beneath his facetious choice of hellos. Robinton stared back, knowing he should back down, that a journeyman Harper had no call to challenge the Weyrleader on anything, but the fact that they kept on keeping him in the dark angered him in a deep and fundamental way.

Still, challenging a man with twice his years and one very large bronze dragon was _not_ one of his more brilliant ideas, no matter how angry he felt, and if it came to belt knives and blows, he highly doubted the most deftly planned and executed of head butts would get him out of it in one piece. So he smiled winningly, bowed to the inevitable, as well as physically to these people who outranked him, and let these strange men and women from this strangely-different Pern talk to him about precisely nothing and prepare him and a surprised-looking F'lon to...apparently go _between_ back where they came, just like that.

_So...you can go _between_ places,_ Robinton mused to himself, as they walked outdoors into the night_. And you can also go _between_ in a way that you end up in the right _place_...but without the right details. The people are wrong, the decor is wrong. _He'd felt that sense of eeriness before, when visiting Boll as a Journeyman, when he remembered bits and pieces of it from his youth when his family had visited there. As if a whole slew of things had passed when he was away, changing the look of the place in slight, subtle ways. Which is what had happened, in those cases.

He had the same feeling here. Almost as if time had passed as quickly as the distance _between_ two places.

Time.

It was a bit of a pity that nobody realized the affable smile plastered on his face was probably the best bit of acting he'd ever done in his life, in light of the stunned revelation that flashed through him. Distance was one thing...but _time_? The dragonriders could go _between _through _time_? Red, bloody stars, the kind of _power_ that gave the dragonriders!

And what if...what if they got _lost_? He supposed that being lost in a normal jump _between_ had its own terrible risk, and, taking a chance and calculating that their first overly long jump _between_ had been the moment when they'd gone through time, the only perceptible difference might be a change in how long they spent in the dark, featureless space of _between_.

Nonetheless, the consequences of jumping _between_ time alarmed him more than jumping _between_ places, although he was fairly sure he could end up dead either way, if something went wrong.

He almost opened up his mouth to question F'lon, to press close and speak in his ear, asking if they were going _forward_ or _backwards_ in time. But it wouldn't be particularly smart to alarm the bronze rider just as they were about to take off. He assumed they were fit to fly, despite the lightening bolt, but still. Best not to tempt fate. And they _had_ taken such pains to keep him in the dark, although he still had no idea why. Unless, perhaps, the fact that dragonriders could fly through time was not the actual secret they wished to keep from him.

But as Simanith's powerful body flexed below them, and _sprung_, lifting them all into the air, Robinton supposed the point was moot anyway, and tried to settle down, push his worries away. After a rather strange adventure, they were obviously going home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

That is, if you took "home" to mean "right back to Benden Weyr". In the wrong _when_.

It wasn't noticeable to either of them right away; one moment they were in _between_, and a _between_ that was longer than eight seconds too, as Robinton had made sure to count again, and the next moment they were gliding down into the weyr's bowl again, in the dark. There very few clues to let them know that they hadn't gone anywhere until Simanith gave a confused bugle in response to a soprano roar, backwinged to set down on firm, grassy terra again, and a rather familiar group of five people (if you could call relative strangers "familiar") walked and jogged towards them, carrying glows in lanterns.

"We didn't go anywhere, Simanith," F'lon said in dismay, after raising his goggles and looking about them.

The dragon made another sound, more felt through Robinton's legs than heard.

"Did you visualize properly?" Weyrlady Lessa asked F'lon, approaching them foremost, and hoisting her lantern high. "That's the _most_ important part--"

That stung F'lon's pride. "No, I visualized the bubbly pie Merelan gave me on my ninth birthing-day," he snapped.

"Leave my mother out of this, please," Robinton advised mildly, trying to diffuse the situation with humor.

Lessa's face was tight with anger as she faced down (or rather up, given the bronzerider was still mounted) F'lon, and they both ignored Robinton. "What did you use to visualize?" she demanded.

"What I always do, the weyr from above!" A gloved hand gestured upwards.

And from there they went into several variations of jargon and dragonrider-speak that Robinton had never witnessed before. It was rather intimidating, to realize just how much effort was put into the process of learning how to go _between_, given the dragon was the one that did all the work.

_I did what I was asked to do,_ someone said mournfully in his head. It took Robinton a moment to realize it was Simanith.

Startled that the bronze would choose to speak to him while his rider was getting into it with the petite--but very assertive--Benden Weyrwoman, Robinton sighed and unbuckled himself before sliding down Simanith's neck. Lessa gave him a full body look-over, as if she were surprised he was dismounting, but then turned back to F'lon as Robinton wasn't obviously dismounting to speak to her.

As Robinton approached, Simanith lowered his head, so the great whirling green eye, slightly tinged with the yellow of alarm, could get a good look at him. "I know you did what you were told to do, Simanith," Robinton said. "I know you always do your best. I think they just want to yell at one another."

_Are you angry with F'lon, Harper?_

Robinton gave a loose, Gaelic shrug. "Speaking as a lowly Harper I don't think playing among the thunderheads and skybrooms was the smartest thing we've ever done, but we're still here. Speaking of that, why _are_ we still here?" Robinton asked the bronze, curious to see if he had a response similar to the different theories F'lon and Lessa were loudly discussing (all the while carefully never once mentioning that the ride _between_ was through time as well).

_I went where we were going, but...it wasn't there? So I came back._ The bronze sounded confused, and the green of his eyes shaded yellower, more lime-green than grass-green.

Feeling as if he weren't supposed to be doing it, but distressed he had caused the bronze to become _more_ anxious rather than less, Robinton reached up and skritched the bronze's eyeridges like he'd seen F'lon and other riders do, while thinking soothing thoughts in case the bronze was picking them up like dragons were wont to do, and slowly the shade of the dragon's eye changed back to grass-green, then turquoise, then a pale sky blue.

"What are you doing?" Lessa suddenly asked from behind him.

Robinton hadn't even noticed her come up, and jumped, snatching his arm away so he wouldn't poke the dragon in the eye. There was a lot of eye to avoid poking. "I'm conversing with Simanith," Robinton said after a hesitation. "And trying not to poke him in the eye by accident when I'm approached without warning by Weyrladies from behind."

_I appreciate not being poked in the eye, Harper,_ Simanith told him, apparently dead seriously, as far as Robinton could tell.

"I figured it was only polite," Robinton told him. "In other news, the next song I plan to compose is entitled, 'approached without warning by Weyrladies from behind'."

The others, who had been conversing among themselves, had chosen to pause by chance just at that moment, so Robinton's voice carried dismayingly well.

There was silence, then a little high-pitched moan of someone desperately trying to suppress laughter.

"You're going to hurt yourself if you don't let that out, Menolly," Master Harper Sebell said, patting the woman on the back.

She started hiccupping. Or sobbing. Or laughing. Or perhaps all three.

Lessa surprisingly did not erupt. Instead, she said, "You're different than I would have imagined. Not as much tact."

Robinton felt a blush, and was glad the darkness hid it. "I've been letting my tongue get the better of me. It's somewhat like a log rolling downhill. I apologize; the phrase just caught my attention after I said it, and I meant no offense; that would be an improper way to repay the hospitality you and everyone else has displayed towards F'lon and I."

Menolly was still giggling.

Lessa looked up at him, blue eyes to blue eyes. "Well, when you've finished composing it, I think I'd like to hear it."

Her eyes were quite beautiful, Robinton found himself thinking. Then he pushed that irrelevant thought to the side, and gave her his best diabolical grin. "You'll be the _first_ to hear it," he promised.

* * *

As they walked back inside the Weyr, F'lon tugged on Robinton's sleeve, and Robinton obligingly leaned over to allow the other man to whisper in his ear. "I thought you didn't think much of their hospitality. So to speak."

"It's called 'tact'," Robinton whispered back. "I was trying to recover from the accusation that I _had_ none."

F'lon snorted. "Are you _really_ going to make that into a song?" he said in a more normal voice.

"Didn't I promise her that I was?"

"Was that a promise?"

"Are we going to stop answering questions with questions?"

"I think you need to get some sleep," F'lon told Robinton. "I don't think I've ever seen you so...so..." he waved his hand in a circle, as if that would conjure the word he was searching for.

"...shirty?" Robinton offered.

"I was thinking more slap-happy. Like you've had a good drink or four in you, except you haven't, unless the Harpers let you imbibe before we brought you here. And to get down four drinks in fifteen minutes you would have had to be chugging it."

If they _had_ offered him a drink, Robinton suspected that he _would_ have chugged one, or four, down the hatch, before ending up here. Add to that to what Simanith had worryingly said--he hadn't been able to _find_ the destination. Did that mean they were not going to go home again? Or merely that Simanith still had a bump on his head from the skybroom? Or that F'lon needed to take "visualization" lessons from the Weyrwoman?

Thoughts like this almost required a drink or two before thinking about them seriously.

F'lar gave F'lon a weyr with a view, and Robinton the one next door, although Robinton had no dragon to occupy his. They were apparently in a section of the Weyr that had few occupants; Robinton wondered if this was coincidence, due to these weyrs being used only by visiting dragons and their riders, or not, but was tired and felt stressful and worried enough that, like so many other topics his agile mind had alighted on this day, he pushed those thoughts aside. So much that looked ominous one evening looked better the next morning; how well he had found that out when confronted by Lord Raid's problems at Benden Hold. So he undressed, splashed around in the small bathing pool to remove sand still remaining from the beach earlier in that day, and crawled under the furs and went to sleep.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Sorry guys, these notes are practically longer than the chapter. To make it up to you, I promise next chapter will be from the Point of View of Menolly. Yay! Menolly! :D

Regarding RaineArilan's comments on Merelan's status--there's always that disconnect between the books _DragonSong_ and _MasterHarper of Pern_ and the fact that Petiron, Menolly's first tutor never once mentioned that his own wife was a Harper, which would have been a whole hell of a lot of help to Menolly in her situation. Yanus and Mavi disapproving of things? Big deal. Petiron could puff up, draw his age around him like a cloak, and let them know that HIS wife had been a Harper, and a damn good one too! But that didn't happen. And the period of time between Robinton's mother and Menolly isn't large enough for all those old Harpers in the Hall to become so against the idea; the oldest ones are Robinton's contemporaries, they'd remember Merelan well enough, as well as the other Singers that did come after her. It's not enough time for such a fiercely held tradition to build up--in my eyes at least. In _DragonSong_, the fact that women couldn't be Harpers held the weight of a _very _old convention, not something that had sprung up within a mere 50 turns or so.

So the explanation I created to fill in the cracks and align both books to be more in canon with one another is that Robinton's mother was like one of those holder girls Menolly met in _DragonSinger_...like those girls, Merelan was sent to the Harper Hall to learn how to be entertaining, and to learn how to sing, and she happened to have a great talent at it. I figure she was a Master Singer--specialized only in Singing, to sort of be used as a human instrument for Petiron or another composer to bring their music to life. A special "woman's rank" in the hall; a part of the hall, but not truly a Harper. I also figured that her sort would typically also be picked due to beauty, as well as talent (definitely not the case for Harpers in general), and they would become arm-baubles for the Harpers (and Holders) who could attract and keep their attention. They would be Divas, basically, the pop-stars of Pern. Or maybe Opera stars. Now, in Merelan's case, I further this idea into a situation where Merelan was a Singer who clearly _had_ the ability to become a fully ranked Harper, unlike some of them, but was unable to, due to the customs against it at that time. I also posit that Gennell gave her posts (a la Benden Hold) that would typically go to a Journeyman or Master Harper because he recognized her talent, and the Hold certainly wasn't going to make a fuss about the assignment due to her sheer popularity as a Singer at the time, but Gennell didn't _quite_ have the leverage to force the matter through the rest of the Masters at the Harper Hall to give her an actual Master's knot and all the rank, pay, and privilege that went with being a Mastercrafts(wo)man. I figure that although she picked up gitar and the ability to teach teaching ballads, she never got the formal training to compose, to physically create instruments, or the training in Pernese law, so she was unable to (technically) carry out the full gamut of a Harper's duties (never mind that most men would have stuck to one specialization themselves--I can easily see a double standard being in place!). And I bet this was used against her too--she wasn't given the training because she was a woman, and was later denied the rank because she hadn't the training. A catch 22.

And also, she didn't have a _bad _life, she probably had a very _good _one compared to your average Pernese woman, and she wasn't a particularly argumentative personality. She probably had no real reason to truly force the issue--because I also suspect that Petiron would have been against her, and she already had discord due to his dislike of Robinton. He may have felt threatened if his immensely talented wife could become an equal to himself (never mind that you could already argue that her career had already far surpassed his). And this would play out well later on with Menolly, because unlike Merelan, Menolly was a gawkish, masculine girl, with none of the grace and beauty that Merelan had. Nor did she have the singing voice the other woman possessed; ultimately, Menolly is not Singer material, as I imagine Merelan would have been, but Menolly is Harper material, something that women could not, at that time be.

So. I see Robinton as feeling his mother's circumstances to be grossly unjust, but due to the unpopularity of the Harper profession in Fax's time, did not come across a woman with the talent and the sheer stubborn will to take that first step to rectify this until Menolly came along.

This way, using the above (admittedly rampant) speculation, we preserve Merelan's status as a popular Singer, but also Menolly's status as being the "first" woman Harper who actually went through the apprentice system and thus had to be treated in a manner due to her rank as a Craftswoman rather than her "rank" as an "ordinary" woman. Because Merelan did not win that rank from the Masters of the Hall...whereas, with Robinton's help, Menolly did. Which is why there was such an ado about it in _DragonSong_ and _DragonSinger_.

I had another fic, _Master Misunderstood_, which dealt with my theories on this, but I removed it because I wasn't updating it. Perhaps I will re-post after editing it into a better shape.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"Did we ever go through all of this?" Menolly asked Sebell, as she sat on the floor of one of the archive rooms, in particular the room dedicated to Robinton, scrolls arranged into loose heaps in a way that would make Arnor, the Master Scrivener, cry.

"We stopped, if I recall, shortly before Lessa was found on Search. Little that happened before then is relevant in an everyday sense these days. I've been poking further back when occasion warrants it, but that applies to Gennell and the Masters before him as well. I wonder if I'm going to generate half as much archive material by the time I'm done on this planet," Sebell mused.

"Some of these have blots," Menolly remarked. "We can probably consider any material I haven't cried upon as unread."

Sebell started to laugh. "Oh, Menolly..."

"I can't believe I didn't _recognize_ him," Menolly said, and her voice broke so unexpectedly in the middle of the words, that her hand flew to her throat.

"I'd say you recognized him well enough to bring him upstairs and come flying in to tell me just who you'd just found wandering the Hall."

"No. I mean...I stood there talking to him, like I might with any stranger who'd just had a startle from one of my fair," Menolly said. "I mean, the similarities are there--the _voice_ should have been a dead giveaway, especially when he started making those eloquent little jokes."

"Eloquent little jokes?" Sebell teased.

Menolly blushed. "_You_ know," she accused. "But it didn't really _hit_ me until I realized he hadn't a clue what firelizards were, or why they were in the Hall, and that he thought the Master Harper was still _Gennell_. When he mentioned _Gennell_, that's when I saw, that's when I _realized_. I had a thought, half a thought before that perhaps he was...a son, a son we hadn't _known_ about--"

"--that wouldn't happen," Sebell said confidently.

"I know that, but when you come across a young man who has physical similarities to someone you _know_ very well, what is the usual cause of that? Time-traveler, or the man's offspring?"

Sebell's mouth twitched. "I would vote for time-traveler," he said.

"Ha. Well, _you're_ Master Harper," she said. "From down here in the rank-and-file I would say offspring. I'd be _wrong_ in this case, but how many other cases would I be _right_ on?"

"You never knew him when he was younger, and still had dark hair, Menolly," Sebell said. "I did."

"White hair doesn't make that big of a difference," she pointed out.

"No, but twenty Turns do. Ugly fellow, these days, isn't he?" the man asked mischievously.

"He is _not _ugly!" Menolly protested, to Sebell's laughter. "He is not!"

"Silvina always said he looked better when he got older..."

"Be that as it may, he's not any uglier than _you_ are!"

Sebell winced. "Ouch!"

Menolly relented. "Neither of you are ugly...but it's strange seeing him with such a young face. I kind of want to reach over and tug on it."

"Shards, Menolly!"

"Well, you know. So it's in the right shape. His cheeks don't look right. You don't want to give them a little tug, to sort of re-arrange them?"

"Not _particularly_," Sebell said.

"Oh, you."

"Don't 'oh, you' me. _You're_ the one that wants to pull on his face like it's taffy."

They both paused, after that, looking at each other, and almost immediately broke into laughter.

"Are you imaging his face if he heard us discussing this?"

"I am." Sebell said, and laughed to himself, the sound almost silent, his shoulders heaving.

They dug through the old files for a while after that without saying much--mostly due to the specter raised in both of their minds...the thought of their Master Robinton, _their_ Master, walking in on them during such a ridiculous conversation.

"He never said anything to you, during that thing you did with Jaxom, about this?" Sebell asked after a while.

Menolly shook her head. "Nothing at all. Not during, not after, not even the few times we discussed going _between_ time. He had..._numerable_...openings. It's unlike him not to take them."

"And, as far as you're aware, since he's here _now_, he had to have experienced whatever he's here to experience in his youth?"

Menolly nodded. "That's how I've always understood how it works." She quickly unrolled some scrolls, glanced through them, and rolled them back up again. "Perhaps he had memory loss, and forgot to tell us."

"Perhaps it's not really him, but his son, coming _between_ through time. Then, we'd _both_ be right!"

"Ha. But we've already confirmed that F'lon is F'lon. And _he_ confirms that Robinton is Robinton. And anyway--young or not, even if I was uncertain at first or not--it _is_ him!" Menolly said.

"Indeed." Sebell rubbed his chin, then rose from his own spot on the floor and started pigeonholing all of the scrolls and hides he'd found no clues in. "There is the thought that perhaps he meant _not_ to tell us. Or that he planned to be alive when it happened, but hidden behind us so he wouldn't have to get close enough to himself to fall ill."

"That still leaves enough questions open--enough to make my head hurt," Menolly said. "Maybe they will be able to successfully go _between_ tomorrow; F'lon _was_ struck by lightening. If so, if Robinton has spent less than a full day here, there wouldn't have been a reason for him to say anything to _us_ about it, would there be?"

"I hate leaving him in the dark on purpose, though."

"Yes," Menolly said. "F'lar and Lessa were vehement that he knew nothing about traveling _between_ times before Lessa made her trip back for the Oldtimers. He was just as frantic as F'lar was, and just as upset with Lessa, too, when she returned. Do you think Robinton could have been acting the entire time?"

"He might have the gall to try. But I'm not sure he could pull it off. I'm not sure _anyone_ would be able to pull _that_ off; lying to F'lar's face while everyone was simultaneously having a nervous breakdown, wondering if the only Queen left was dead or not? That would be very...dedicated...acting. I say he didn't know."

"So we keep him in the dark," Menolly said, sighing.

"Blast it. Yes. And two marks says he's _not_ going to like it."

"Do you always bet only when it's a sure thing?"

"I try to," Sebell said with a wry grin.

* * *

There was something...unusual...and maybe ironic as well...in the fact that she was essentially plotting with Sebell how best to keep this younger version of Robinton where they wanted him to stay, and only as informed as they wanted him to be informed. Familiar actions, but a decidedly ironic target. In Menolly's heart, she wanted to reach out to him, to just _give_ him the information he was obviously craving, to assist him in his time of need like he had once assisted her. It must be _impossibly_ confusing and frightening for him to be in this situation, but only his quickly joking or sarcastic tongue betrayed it as far as she could see, and for all she knew, that had not been unusual for Robinton at this age.

And...he was _Robinton_. Here, again, living amongst them. It was impossible to not to want to help him. But Master Robinton was such an..._influential_...person on the history of Pern, and certain bits of knowledge that were more or less commonplace now had not been a mere handful of turns back. They couldn't _risk_...

And that was the funny part. That they turned themselves inside out when everything was already ordained. The Weyrs had gone missing...because Lessa had brought them forward, which she had _done_..._because_ they were missing. There was a certain strange paradoxical circle of logic there that Menolly wasn't sure their most ancient of ancestors would have been able to explain or unravel. Jaxom had had his hand in several matters that she suspected had been equally pre-destined. And this?

It was difficult to tell.

They'd left him at Benden Weyr last night, because there were fewer people there who knew him intimately enough that they would spot him, even hidden behind the youth the reversal of many, many Turns bestowed, and because dragonriders were more likely to keep mum on the subject of going _between_ times, if only to avoid Lessa and F'lar's wrath. And _also_ because Robinton might think twice about trying to sneak out of a Weyr, as it was a more dangerous feat, due to the elevations and location of a Weyr, than sneaking out of the Harper Hall.

Nonetheless, Sebell and Menolly had warned the two Weyrleaders that the longer Robinton and F'lon lingered in this _when_, the more likely they would be forced to make a critical decision: would they give Robinton enough information to win his trust, or would they, quite literally, imprison him somewhere? A gilded cage of some sort?

Lessa had looked shocked.

"Do you think it would come to that?" F'lar asked.

"He has no reason to trust us," Sebell said. "None of us were even a come-hither look in anyone's eye at this point in his life. And we've already agreed it would be best not to tell him anything about his later life, or about how he and F'lon managed to get here--_I_ wouldn't be particularly trusting in that situation. Not at all." He shook his head slowly.

"And you think he will take action because of that?" Lessa asked.

"He didn't make Master Harper by sitting around, twiddling his thumbs," the current Master Harper pointed out.

"I don't know," Menolly said teasingly to Sebell. "He sat around, twiddling his thumbs, smiling like a manic, fairly regularly, as I recall."

"Well, he'd _already_ taken action then, you see. He was just waiting for the result." And he shared a fond smile with Menolly, as they remembered their Master's quirks.

F'lar and Lessa shared their own look, which held a bit of worry.

"What about F'lon?" Sebell said. "I would say he had his own considerable impact on things..." and he gestured in F'lar's direction, indicating the Weyrleader's parentage.

F'lar didn't answer right away, so Lessa spoke. "He now knows what any dragonrider knows--what any _modern_ dragonrider knows. It was necessary when explaining to him how to get back. It would be foolishly dangerous to try to dead-weight Simanith between Ramoth and Mnemoth to a _when_ we've never been to--"

"He _knew_ thread was coming," F'lar interjected. "With a certainty I never saw displayed again by any other dragonrider until _we_ flew against it for the first time. I would be surprised if he didn't know it _then_ because he knows it _now_. He knows we're in the middle of the 9th pass. It would be stupid to take needless risks and create elaborate plans just to hide from him something he likely knew when I was a lad."

"Ah," Sebell said. "That's good to know. Because neither Menolly nor I were told anything about this by our Master. We plan to go through the archives tonight to see if there's a scrap, a note, a hide or tablet anywhere that says anything, but it seems peculiar."

Lessa snorted. "Robinton keeping secrets seems peculiar?" she asked, a note of laughter in her voice.

"Well," Sebell said. "We were usually the first to know. When the secrets stopped being secrets." Neither Harper mentioned that there was still a lot that they knew that Lessa and F'lar had never been told.

It was better to let sleeping wherries lie, after all, Menolly thought, scratching Beauty on the top of her head.

Menolly was picked up at the Harper Hall the next morning to be brought back to Benden by F'nor, who had witnessed most of what had gone on last night, but without much comment. Of course, he had spent several Turns on the Southern continent, doubling up on himself in order to grow up a group of dragons and dragonriders so that they could be added to the Weyr's laughably small fighting force before thread first fell. So she doubted much of anything involving _between_ times would get a rise out of him. Sebell reluctantly stayed behind at the Hall; their night-time departure with an unknown third party had already stirred enough curiosity among their Harpers, and there were still a few records to scour that neither of them had touched yet. But he extracted from Menolly a promise to alert him or Kimi the moment anything interesting happened.

Menolly promised, and pondered where exactly he drew the line at "interesting" when she arrived at Benden Weyr just in time for the morning meal. Because she found it fascinating to observe the interaction between the younger version of her master and F'lon--there was a familiarity there, a friendship that eclipsed even the very close relationship between Robinton and the current Benden Weyrleaders had had. _They're best friends, from boyhood,_ Menolly thought. She'd never known about that.

Robinton was as curious about her as she was about him, although for greatly different reasons. He asked her about how she had ended up in the Hall over his bowl of porridge, and she immediately cursed the question in her head and said, "How does anyone end up in the Hall?" in an offhand manner. Robinton caught that she hadn't really told him anything with that phrase, and frustration flashed in his eyes before he gave her an affable smile to hide it.

The frustration and anger towards her hurt in a surprising way; she knew that this younger Robinton was not quite the man she'd known, and was not the man he would one day be, but his anger, directed at her, hurt all the same, much like the few times he'd shown disapproval towards her as Master to Apprentice. Beauty made a soft noise and shifted on her shoulder, and Menolly stroked the tail curled around her throat in order to soothe her.

"And how did you end up with firelizards so attached to you?" Robinton asked, his attention drawn to Beauty. "Because I most acutely recall the creatures flitting away down the beach from me the one time I walked too near their resting spot when I was Journeying through Southern Boll. I tried to lure one to me for about a day, and it never worked, no matter what type of meat I offered."

Of course, this was another topic she was unsure if she should elaborate on. But...she could see the foundation for trust becoming smaller and smaller with each secret, each tidbit of information she held back from him...so she glanced towards the open door into the hallway, tilting back in her chair to do so. Beauty had a few sounds to make about that, but she quickly returned her chair to all four legs on the ground, and then got up to close the door. "I'm not actually supposed to be telling you this," she said, asking Beauty with a silent query to look around and see if anyone but themselves were in this area of the Weyr. The small queen chirruped, unwound her tail, and leapt off her shoulder to dart over Simanith and out the bowl entrance to this weyr. Simanith lifted his great head and watched her go. "And once we get you two home, I'd appreciate it if you do not spread it about," she said with a small smile.

Robinton scooped up some porridge and ate it, while waiting for her to go on. It was a faint echo, or precursor, to the way he could hungrily consume a gigantic breakfast, looking incredibly preoccupied the entire time, while still not missing a any detail, no matter how seemingly trivial, she had to report to him. It also didn't escape Menolly that he didn't actually promise her a single thing right now, as he swigged down a cup of klah with an audible noise, his adam's apple bobbing.

Typical Robinton.

Menolly returned to sit at the table again, and a moment later, Beauty returned, making a self-satisfied chirp. The queen gave her a few scattered visions of chasing off some poor brown/green firelizard pair that had been innocently basking in the sun a hundred dragonlengths away, and Menolly rolled her eyes and laughed. "You didn't," she told her.

"She speaks to you?" F'lon asked, staring at them.

Menolly shook her head. "Not per se; I get scraps of visions, and emotions usually, not always very coherent. She just lambasted some poor green, and her brown beau, for sunning themselves too close to us. If you can call a hundred dragonlengths close." She snorted. "We stayed in Benden Weyr for a time when she was still mostly a baby, and she still seems to think she's the senior queen firelizard whenever we return." Menolly fondly stroked Beauty. "Anyhow--I Impressed my firelizards shortly after they hatched."

"They're Impressible?" F'lon asked, while Robinton continued to eat.

"Not like a dragon--they will Impress to anyone that stuffs their little gullets with food. They'll also fly away and leave you forever if you treat them badly. And, obviously, you can Impress more than one. But I don't recommend it; with the ones I have, they have enough hide between them to cover a newborn dragon, and they're often going ten different ways at once, which can make bathing and oiling an all-day event."

F'lon chuckled at that, obviously appreciating having to bathe and oil a lot of hide. "How many do you have?"

"I Impressed nine as a youngster, by accident, and then a tenth after that, again by accident. This on my shoulder is Beauty. I have the bronzes Rocky, Diver, and Poll, and browns Brownie, Mimic, and Lazybones, the greens Auntie One and Auntie Two, and a blue called Uncle." Menolly paused for a breath, and then laughed as both men purposely withheld comment about the names, so she answered the unspoken thoughts anyway. "I was all of fourteen turns, and names have never been my strong suit. They don't seem to mind, though."

"Beauty's name is apt," Robinton said.

"I've always thought so," Menolly said. "I attempted to rename Brownie once, in a fit of guilt because I was the only one with firelizards named...descriptively...but he just looked at me like I was crazy and went to sleep."

"Others don't follow your naming conventions?" Robinton asked.

"No. Sebell named his queen Kimi, and there's another queen Farli, and bronze Zair, and gold Merga," she said thoughtfully, remembering how she had gone through every firelizard she'd known of and hadn't found another one that wasn't hers that had a "descriptive" name. It had been rather distressing at the time.

"Zair sounds like a good name," Robinton said.

Menolly turned red, shrugged, and decided to change the subject. "Has Lessa spoken to you about what you plan to do next?" she asked F'lon.

F'lon's shade started to match Menolly's. "We spoke a...short time...earlier, but we didn't make any definitive plans."

Both Robinton and Menolly waited for him to elaborate, but he stared back at them, yellow eyes innocent-seeming.

"What happened?" Robinton asked finally.

"Well...we only have what's on our backs, and we don't know when we will be going home, so I asked her about some clothing. Since she was there. And. You know. That's part of the Weyrwoman's duties. She wasn't too happy about it."

"You worded it poorly?" Robinton suggested.

"I...worded it poorly," he admitted. "But blazes, man, your rear is practically _hanging out_ of there, or _would be_ if you _had_ a--"

Robinton forgot his food, and practically leaped over the table to clamp a hand over the dragonrider's mouth. "F'lon, we have a lady present, and we're eating breakfast," he said, as F'lon scrabbled at his hand, trying to pry it off of his face. "We don't need to hear _that_. However, if you promise to say no more, I'll let you go."

F'lon nodded immediately and vigorously.

Robinton let him go.

"You know, maybe if you wore underthings I wouldn't have _mentioned_ it to the Weyrwoman--"

Menolly boggled at the mental image, and tried not to look like she was boggling. "Well, gentlemen," she said quickly, rising. "I'm going to run off now. I'll talk to both of you later." She scooted her chair in under the table, and turned heel before she could burst into laughter.

However, as she was opening the door, she did manage to get out, in all seriousness, in Robinton's direction. "I'm sure I can nick something from Sebell, if necessary..."

Robinton stared at her.

She lost her nerve and fled.

Behind her, before she got out of earshot, she heard Robinton have _words_ with F'lon. "Look at what you've done! She was actually talking about useful things and you come out of _nowhere_ saying my naked arse is hanging out of my pants? _Why_?!"

"I...worded it poorly."

"You _worded_ it--?!" his rich baritone held an ocean's worth of scorn and ridicule.

Menolly giggled to herself all the way down to the bowl of the Weyr.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** You do realize that this lightheartedness right here foreshadows some really horrible things happening to our friends in the future, don't you? Oh yes...:cackles: _Things_ are going to happen. And this fic is going to either be really spectacular, or the suckiest piece of suckity suck fanfic writing you've ever read.

You have been warned.

Please review! :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Sometimes, Master Teslay wondered if the late Master Harper Robinton had truly understood what they had discovered with the AIVAS. It was difficult to say; Teslay had, of course, seen the man on a daily basis during his Apprenticeship in the Harper Hall. And, like all Harpers, he had met with the man in person at least a handful of times--far fewer times than the man's personal Apprentices, of course, but more times than some other Harpers he knew. But Robinton had risen to power during a time when Harpers were actively persecuted, and had subverted his Craft to provide himself with the power his type of position and rank normally wouldn't ever obtain, so that he could protect his people. Or so the ballads went. And despite all the songs, and the effigies, and the uprising of adoration that had arisen in the wake of the man's death, Teslay thought that people forgot that the man had been a person who had sought out _power_, even if it had been with the best intentions. How else did a man whose duty were merely to supervise entertainers, to supervise teachers of children too small to Apprentice into a Craft, take a place as one of the most powerful men on Pern? It wasn't something you just _stumbled_ upon. It wasn't even something _forced_ upon you, like F'lar's position as _the_ Weyrleader of Pern.

It was more like Lessa's rise to fame and glory by purposely taking a single action that had affected the Eighth Pass, the Ninth Pass, and everything in _between_. Except in Robinton's case, it was a series of smaller and more purposeful actions spread over many, many Turns...and thus, much more calculated.

But, even remembering those facts himself, Teslay still couldn't decide if Robinton _had_ known, or _hadn't_ known, _exactly_ what they had discovered with the AIVAS. For example, it was still an open question, as far as he was concerned, if Robinton had had a hand in the AIVAS's...termination. Trying to put the dragon back into the egg, as it were. Or the ugly, mal-formed wher. There was a part of him, the little part of him that was caught up in the larger-than-life Harper's visions, that hoped that maybe the man _had_. _Had_ known, and had taken action to correct things, to slow down the influx of knowledge so that it would not utterly ruin their society.

Master Teslay was sometimes an idealist in his heart of hearts, even though it was much more comforting to be cynical and knowledgeable than idealistic and blind.

He knew that it was a bit ironic that he would be sitting here with the present Master Harper, Sebell, while thinking these thoughts. But Teslay had never expected to stumble into composition so sideways either, and such late-career moves (he'd been a Master for turns already) were always vetted through other peers, other Master-level Harpers. And in his case, his music wasn't even _playable_ without aid from the Smiths--and he didn't have access to these projects without Master Sebell's approval. So here he was, back in the Hall once again, thinking thoughts that could possibly turn the man in front of him against him in an instant, if the man only knew how "treasonous" they were.

Master Sebell was viewing one score, written on paper, with a faint line between his brows, and his lower lip thoughtfully caught under his teeth. On his shoulder perched his golden queen Kimi, and in his left hand he absently played with a wineglass, balancing it cocked to one side on its base, sloshing the small amount of deep red fluid around the bowl, and never spilling a single drop, all without tearing his gaze from Teslay's compositions.

"The transcription is imperfect," Teslay offered to the man. "I've done a lot of research into AIVAS's music banks, and there are genres of music there that contain sounds none of our current modes of written transcription can even transcribe accurately. Many things in there are approximation. And, of course, some of it is my incompetence." Teslay rubbed his jaw, embarrassed. "I never realized I'd approach composition seriously, so I was, shall we say, not the most _attentive_ in those classes. I have much to re-learn in that respect."

Master Sebell waved the words away. "In your opinion, what would we use this music for?" he asked, and drained the rest of his wine out of the glass.

"I wasn't aware that music needed a _use_," Teslay said, stung, despite the fact that he had known quite well many--if not most--Harpers would dislike his compositions. He had never gone into composition when he was younger because none of the types of composition had ever interested him. Until he had discovered AIVAS's music banks in Landing. Music that was off-beat (sometimes literally) and strange enough to interest him.

"That was not my meaning; you are of course free to compose whatever you wish, as you wish it, as is any Harper's right. But, from your notes, you would need resources of other people--mainly Landing-educated Smiths--to bring these particular compositions to fruition. While the Hall has a substantial access to the new technologies of Landing, in comparison to other Crafts, our resources are not infinite. And, speaking more bluntly here, your lyrics are..._interesting_." Sebell looked up from the paper to meet his eyes. "Dropping manpower and marks into these compositions would turn a matter of personal expression into a more diplomatic one that would have long-reaching effects through the Hall."

"You would like me to censor myself?" Teslay asked.

"Mmm," Sebell said, which wasn't quite a comment, as he set the papers down and leaned back in his chair. "Different generations need different thoughts expressed through the outlet of music, and I am not yet convinced that _these_ are representative of this post-AIVAS generation." His unspoken words held a challenge. _Convince me_.

Teslay stared back at the Master of the Harper Craft, and thought about how to put things into words. The compositions he'd given the man were...not gelded, but chosen carefully out of the river of music that had spontaneously flowed out of his mind. There were others in his bag that lampooned several people involved in the whole initial discovery of AIVAS, including Robinton, who may or may not have understood exactly what he was unleashing--and Teslay didn't intend to show those about until he got a bloody good feel about who would be receptive to them, and who would throw a punch or knife in his face for merely bringing the subject up.

A curious thing Teslay had noted about the Harpers assigned to Landing and associated projects in Cove Hold was that, aside from Menolly and perhaps the perpetually-occupied-by-very-important-matters Robinton, nobody had any true interest or talent in composition. Only Menolly had had the skill, ability, and free time to digest all the new and different genres of music, and bring to life some triumphant, fantastically popular life's work from the collision of styles, to _be_ the voice of this new generation of people, to _capture_ their souls and minds...and she _hadn't_. She'd gone on the musical equivalent of a...a bloodline, a _genealogy_ search, finding the forefathers of their oldest songs, and reviving those, in a gentle...motherly...way. Like an old auntie, telling family stories that everyone had for the most part already heard before. A bit patronizing, if she _really_ thought the common person would only be able to handle those variations on tunes they already knew.

And Teslay had to wonder...had Menolly gone on a musical genealogy search by her own design? Or was she instructed to keep the more...primal and interesting music away from uninitiated ears? Was there a reason nobody skilled in composition ended up stationed near the AIVAS complex, where non-acoustic music could be heard, or was it mere coincidence, as the same people skilled in composition were usually hard at work in the Hall, putting together the next Gather's merrymaking-music? Music that wouldn't cause the gathers to _riot_?

It was difficult to decide if he was being paranoid, or if, like his gut told him on the days when he'd passed one of those shadow-Harpers in Landing, the ones that only did enough musical Harping to fake it among those not involved in the Craft, that it wasn't paranoia if it were _true_.

And how to put together the argument for Sebell, and not only him, but the rest of the senior Masters in the Hall, that throwing out this...revival music, _all_ of it, the good, bad, and utterly exotic and alien...would mirror the revolution and the fads of ancient-made-new that was spreading through their world? That the schisms it would create in the Hall would accurately mirror what was happening to their world?

Well. He doubted that Sebell would want schisms in the Hall mirroring those on the rest of Pern. Tesley threw _that_ idea out to thread as a bad one, and tried to order his thoughts, because the man sitting across the desk was waiting on him. So after a few long moments, he spoke. "Would you hook a dragon up before a wagon, and have him _walk_ across Pern, merely because that's how most of our population get themselves and their goods from one place to another?" Teslay asked the Master Harper rhetorically. "Of course not," he answered his own question swiftly. "That would be absurd. Dragons can fly, and moreso, they can go _between_. Even through time, as the Weyrwoman showed us at the beginning of the pass. Similarly...why should _we_ limit ourselves to the known--the verse, chorus, verse--when we raise to our lips and run our fingers over musical instruments that are so different from what we have known before? Why should we limit ourselves out of fear? We should plunder our ancestor's vast archives of knowledge, and squeeze it through the sieve of music, so that when the time comes, our people already have a mental frame on which to associate these new things to, so that they do not panic, and they do not fear. This is a part of our duties as Harpers already, to educate and inform. How will people be educated if we play the same types of songs? How can we tell them not to fear, when we fear these new musics we now have re-discovered?"

"Why should the Smiths get involved in the Harper duties of educating?" Sebell asked mildly.

"Investing in, say, amplification technology would ease the spread of important information without the audience having to be utterly silent--as anxious audiences often are _not_. That benefits all. Not even the loudest-mouthed Harper can silence or out-bellow a crowd in a fuss. And that is just one example--the new instruments can assist Smiths in perfecting techniques that will later go into more serious uses...if an instrument suddenly can not be heard, or is out of tune, that is, frankly, only a major concern to the Harper performing. People won't _die_ from it--nobody has _actually_ ever died of embarrassment, as far as I know. But if the same technology is being used in a mine, or on a ship at sea, you want it to be reliable. Let the Smiths innovate on wild, new instruments and work their mishaps out there, let us Harpers innovate on the instruments as well, and work out the mishaps in the minds and emotions of this transformed society as well, so that when more serious times come, the questions we are poised to ask have already been answered in hearts and minds."

Sebell regarded him steadily, and Tesley hoped that what he had said made some sort of sense to the man. Then Sebell sat back in his chair, steepled his fingers before his chin...and smiled. "That's a very Robinton-esque argument of you," he said.

Tesley blinked. "I'll take that as a compliment, although it's fairly ridiculous these days to see people painting his image on the sides of their wagons." The criticism just slipped out, and he bit his tongue a little painfully.

Sebell's eyes widened just a fraction, as if he were surprised at that news, and Tesley wondered how a detail like that could have escaped the man. Surely _someone_ had told him of that particular new fad. Hadn't they?

Then the man threw back his head and laughed.

"I'm hoping you find the mental image as _terrifying_ as I do," Tesley said wryly.

"He would be absolutely mortified...horrified...if he wasn't dead already, I'm sure he would be stricken dead by the mere sight of such a thing, or mere thought," Sebell said around his chuckles.

"Well, I feel mortified on his behalf every time I look at one of the bloody things," Tesley muttered, and was gratified to note that Sebell did not seem offended by it. He actually wanted to take a scouring brush to the murals. _This_ he actually managed to keep locked behind his tongue, however.

Sebell rubbed his face with a hand. "Any idea why they're putting murals on wagons? And where is this happening? You did come into the Hall over land?" As opposed to flying _between_, which was quick, but not the best way to gather information from the ground.

Tesley quirked an eyebrow. "I did. I saw most of it in Nerat. Why Nerat, I don't know. I saw a scattering of it between here and there. It may be an anti-Abominator...blazon, or sign, but that's really just speculation. Maybe he kissed one of their babies once upon a time, so they painted it as remembrance and it caught on like a fad. I'm sure Hiss, Slide, and Jog would be able to find out more." He pulled names out of a hat.

Sebell was the one who quirked an eyebrow this time. "Who?" he asked innocently, but his eyes held a mild reprimand. "Thank you for letting me know about the murals; it's possible someone mentioned it before but I thought they were not speaking literally. It's good to know about that. Anyway..." and Sebell set his glass down with a clink. "These...I will be taking a look at," and he thumped the small stack of papers with Teslay's scores written upon them. "In the meantime, if you're wishing to study composition--"

"Talk to Master Domick?"

"Well, no, unless you _want_ to, but I gather you two never really had much fondness for one another..."

"Never personal," Teslay said. "I just didn't pay attention. And yes, I'd like to stay out of firing range of his sarcasm on _that_ one--"

"--there are some _books_ in the archive, Tagetarl has been working on converting our oldest archives into plates so that they can be re-printed at will when necessary, without condemning some poor Apprentice to half a year hunched over a table. There are one or two on composition that you may be interested in, if you're looking for a refresher. Granted, they are a bit outdated...but given your source of inspiration..." Sebell snorted slightly, and smiled.

Teslay nodded, to show his appreciation for the advice. "Thank you, sir."

Sebell did not end up jumping out of his seat, proclaiming that yes, he would allocate manpower and resources to Tesley's vision during their meeting, but at the same time, he also did not throw Tesley out of his office, or even give him a flat-out "no", and he was keeping the scores for later review, which Teslay wanted to believe was a good thing. And although Tesley knew Sebell was a better actor than he appeared, the man seemed to have lost the veneer of neutrality that had covered his earlier misgivings about Tesley's work, so he cautiously was hopeful when Sebell dismissed him. Perhaps he would get a chance after all.

Because he had surprised himself by the explanation that had risen up in him in the face of Sebell's unspoken challenge to be convincing. Before today, if someone had been able to get him drunk enough to spill his most private opinions about the most significant events of the past ten turns, he would say he was Abominator enough to get himself shunned by the majority of his Crafthall if they only knew. And possibly beaten. And yet, what he had told the MasterHarper was true...they were there to educate people. It was part of their _duty_. And that wasn't happening quickly enough. The Master Harper had already let the hatchling out of the egg and there was no Turning back; it was an impossible thing, the knowledge they had gained, as unstoppable as the fall of thread as the Ninth Pass crawled by, turn by turn, and it was the Harpers' _duty_ to try to clean up the mess that was made by one of their own. Even if it meant making the massive changes in their music that Tesley feared were needed.

Tesley sighed when he got back to his temporary quarters, and rubbed his forehead, and tucked his bag with his figurehead-spearing tunes under the bed where a drudge or overly curious apprentice would not accidentally come upon it while tidying up the guestroom he was using. He wasn't sure he liked thinking about such weighty matters, and, fatigue tired his bones as his body insisted that it was just about bedtime in _Landing_, so why wasn't he asleep yet?

His stomach growled, and Tesley gave that part of him a silent voice as well. _Because I'm hungry. _So he pushed matters out of his mind, and clattered downstairs towards the kitchens to join the rest of the Hall for their evening meal.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Because _someone_ has to consider what sort of social upheavals the Pernese are going to encounter when 20th/21st (at the _least_) technology meets a culture that has more in common with feudal-anything. The Pernese don't even have democracy, except possibly in the Crafthalls. The Weyrs are a...sexocracy? Hahaha. Decided by the outcome of a dragon's mating flight. Holds are like monarchies mixed with meritocracies in that you don't _have_ to be the first born, although it's preferred, depending on the era, to inherit the Hold.

Sorry for this chapter being so _dense_. Particularly in comparison to the earlier fluffish-humor stuff. But I asked the lolcats, "I can has plot?" and the lolcats agreed, "U can has plot!" so I have one now. Because lolcats are cool like that. /random.

Sebell is surprisingly competent here, but my fingers probably wrote him like that just so Robinton doesn't look like a fool for choosing him as the next Master Harper. Oh wait, Crafts decide who's the next Master by vote. In theory. Ha. And, it would be out of character to have him be a fool, even though there's generally a lot of leeway in characterizing him I think, because we never _see_ Sebell due to the long shadow of his Master.

Anyway, enough about a character the fangirl in me wants to see cuckolded. As always, please R&R! :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"What's this?" Robinton asked Weyrwoman Lessa when she joined F'lon and himself after breakfast and shoved something in his direction.

"Pants," she said shortly.

Robinton's eyes flicked to F'lon, who was studying his mug of klah resolutely as if the answers to Pern, the moons, and the universe were inscribed on its rim. Then he glanced at Lessa, and decided not to push his luck by taking a jibe at either one of them, or even at thin air. Instead, he swallowed his own embarrassment, took the offering graciously with a slight bow, and pulled out one of the seats at the table for Lessa, who looked at him like he'd sprouted the foliage of some exotic tree from the top of his head.

Didn't people pull out seats for the Weyrwoman? Or was it merely something that "he" shouldn't do? Much like Menolly was worried about him going about by his own name? Robinton ignored those thoughts and indicated with a wave of his hand that the chair was for her.

Lessa gracefully folded herself into the seat after that one strange look at him, and F'lon stopped slouching and tried to look her in the eye as if he weren't turning a wonderful shade of red high in his cheeks. There were only two seats in this room, so Robinton set the cloth bundle he had on a table, closed the door, and leaned against the wall.

"Actually...could I speak with F'lon for a moment?" Lessa said diplomatically and sweetly.

_Oh, you're kicking me out of the room again?_ Robinton immediately thought. But he gave her a bright smile and grabbed the bundle of clothes again. "By all means," he said, his voice cheerful. Then he pointed at the bundle, "I'll just excuse myself then..." and he exited quickly, assumedly to try on the pants, before his facade cracked.

Closing the door behind him, he stood in the deserted hallway for a moment or two, bundle of pants under one arm, and debated the benefits of lurking here, trying to hear what he could of their discussion through the door. Of course, if they exited suddenly, there really was no way to avoid being caught, and only a moron or extreme innocent would think he was loitering out here for any other purpose. Lessa didn't strike him as either a moron, or an extreme innocent. There was a certain weight behind her pretty blue eyes that he wasn't sure he wanted to test, any more than he wanted to test the yellow-eyed intensity of the Weyrleader F'lar.

So instead, Robinton took the opportunity to test the limits of his fetters; he headed for the stairs down to the lower levels, and planned to ask where the bathing room furthest from here was (to "stretch his legs"), and also to have opportunity to interrogate whomever was kind enough to show him the way. He knew his way around--in that creepy things-have-changed fashion that had haunted him in the Harper Hall--but he was certain the person he asked wouldn't be aware of that. He would be just another unfamiliar face to them.

Robinton walked quickly out of the generally deserted guest weyrs, his long legs eating up the distances, until he finally reached a hallway that was one of the more main routes through the weyr, one with people present. There, he let his body language suggest that he was lost, but trying not to be, and eyed the markers on the walls that pointed to the main dining area, as if he wasn't sure if he wanted to go that way or not.

It took longer than he expected to find a shepherd looking for a sheep; many dragonriders streamed by, but they were in full riding gear and looked busy, and Robinton wondered where they were all headed off to. He caught the pungent scent of firestone on a few that were coming in against the general current, and wondered if they were doing a live-fire drill of some sort, which was much more exciting than wandering around in search of a bathing room to change in in the hopes that he could pry some bit of knowledge out of some innocent.

So he turned to a hesitant young man who was starting to approach him to act as shepherd, smiled winningly as if he'd just remembered where he had to go, and strode off around a corner, before backtracking another way so he could dart out into the bowl through a different entryway.

He wasn't the only one; outside there were a few groups of people, even aside from the dragonriders who were walking to the far end of the bowl where dragons were amassing, and all of them seemed to be busy. He kept out of the way best he could, assuming that this must be a full-Weyr drill. He'd seen a few before, drills for weyrlings, drills that were "serious", and drills with colored streamers meant for show during a gather, but they had tended only to involve the dragonriders involved, and not many of the supporting staff and Crafters as he saw here amassing today. Perhaps this was a once-in-a-Turn type of drill, a full-out ready-for-battle maneuver so they could be sure everyone knew their duty and place if Thread ever fell again.

Robinton found an out-of-the-way short stone wall, and perched on it, observing. Talk and chatter drifted around him--instructions to others, complaints about this or that person, place, or thing. The usual crowd, if more purposed than was usual.

The density of people increased as time went by; dragonriders going to meet their dragons on the far end of the weyr, who were arranging themselves into colorful wings, as individual men strode up and down the ranks, doing inspections. Weyrlings with wagons hooked up behind their young dragons, pulling out firestone from wherever in the depths of the Weyr it was stored. A bevy of full-blown Healers giving orders, their tunics edged in green, setting up very serious-looking areas well-separated by dragon-sized spaces. Kitchen crews, setting up cooking areas and eating areas and starting to slice and dice the ingredients for the meal.

This was very comprehensive for a drill, and Robinton began to feel a sense of growing malcontent. He could hear people talking about Thread--but, not in the theoretical way...he hadn't heard a single protest of disbelief, as was typical for any conversation that had ever mentioned Thread in _his_ hearing. They spoke of thread in a calm, matter-of-fact way that chilled his blood.

As if it was coming.

Robinton frowned, a line appearing between his eyes, and he sharpened his ears. And the sounds they brought to him confirmed it. This was a working Weyr. That is to say, Benden Weyr, _in this when_, was a working Weyr that _fought Thread_.

It left him speechless, even more speechless than the other day's realization that he and F'lon had gone _between_ time by accident.

F'lon had always _said_...that he thought...and there was no doubt that there was _something_ about that question song..._/where oh where/..._but believing and _knowing_ were entirely two different states of mind. Robinton raked his memories for knowledge about Thread, what it could do, and came up with laughably little knowledge aside from that it devoured anything and everything living that it touched. They had their teaching songs...but what did the songs _mean_? Any _child_ could recite them, but the downside of preserving knowledge in music was the embellishment--or, in the other direction, streamlining--of concepts that really should be preserved in a more precise way. And then there were songs like the question song, which seemed to be cryptic by design.

It was, he realized in some part of his mind, a bit fruitless to sit here in his out of the way corner, trying to assemble his theoretical knowledge of thread when all around him was a Weyr with a full, real knowledge of the threat it held against their people. Of course, for all he knew, he could end up going home tomorrow, and the only knowledge he would have was what was in his head...

...was that what they were trying to stop him from knowing? Robinton briefly considered it, but that _couldn't_ be it. Why wouldn't they want him to warn his people that thread _was_ coming?

Well, maybe because it wouldn't happen until he was long turned to dust. He hadn't figured out yet exactly how far forward in time he was. Far forward enough that he hadn't come across anyone he recognized. But...but not so far forward that they didn't recognize _him_. He realized that neither Weyrleader F'lar nor Weyrwoman Lessa had ever asked him for his name or Craft. They, like the Harpers, had known him on sight.

_They knew me_. And they knew about thread. And about going _between_ time. And yet...and yet...they treated him like...a part of his mind tried to reason with the other parts...after all, he wasn't _literally_ locked into a cell, and he was hardly so ignorant of his own world's history that he thought that that would be impossible. People had been locked up for less...

"There you are!" A familiar voice said, and Robinton turned slightly to see F'lon striding towards him, along with Lessa. "Why are you out here? I thought you were going to try on..." he gestured at Robinton's lap where he held the pants.

"Well, everyone else was out here, so I came too," Robinton said mildly, hiding his thoughts behind a facade. "Anyway, I was going to the southern bathing room."

"You were? There's a bathing room right around the corner, there's no need to walk across the entire bowl," F'lon said.

"I'm in good health. There's no need _not_ to." Robinton shrugged.

F'lon scratched his ear. "Well, do they fit?"

Robinton smiled. "I'm sure they fit fine." The tone was a little flat, he noted in a side chain of thought; he needed to perhaps work on his intonation under stress.

"That's what you always say when you buy pre-made stuff off the racks, and you're always wrong. Tailors at Gathers size for the average person, and you're way taller than average, my friend. Let's go back to our quarters and try those--"

Robinton's smile vanished. "Have I suddenly devolved in age?" he snapped, as quietly as he could, but the tone was harsh enough that he saw the shock on the dragonrider's face. "Are we going to go back to our quarters so you can _dress me up_ in them, like I were a child of no more than three Turns of age?"

"No! No. No one's calling you a child, Rob!" F'lon protested.

"Well, you are certainly _acting_ like I am one. Either that, or as if I'm a drudge too moronic to remember half my teaching songs."

"I don't think that F'lon was implying--" Lessa said, stepping in.

"There are _words_, and there is _meaning_, and I may only be a Journeyman Harper, but nonetheless I think I can deduce _meaning_ no matter what _words_ you utter in my direction. I thank you for your concern for the well-being of my wardrobe, but if it helps to make matters clearer, I return the clothing so that you can both stop trying to lead me out of the Weyr bowl using it as some sort of strange _bait_." He held the bundle of cloth out in Lessa's direction, and eventually she took it. "Now. Am I _allowed_ to watch the mobilization of the Weyr to fight against Thread, or--"

F'lon opened his mouth, but his body language betrayed the protest he was going to make before he said it. Obviously, it was a "drill".

"_No_. I have ears, too, my friend, it's somewhat of a pre-requisite for a Harper, and I have _not_ heard a single utterance of disbelief in Thread since I came out here. Do you know how unusual that is? Even in a Weyr? How unusual that _was_? Thread. _Falls_. In this _when_."

F'lon closed his mouth, and Lessa compressed hers into a thin line. There was no denial from either of them.

"Are you going to go flying in it?" Robinton asked F'lon, nodding down towards the far, far end of the bowl where dragons were still gathering. He hadn't seen Simanith, but his recognition of individual dragons was taxed by the distance. He was no dragonrider.

"If he was, is, or will be _fighting_ thread, isn't any concern of _yours_, Harper," Lessa said in a chilly voice. F'lon obviously waffled through several retorts on his face, but in the end didn't add anything, and let the Weyrwoman's words stand as his own.

It was true, Robinton had just admitted it to himself, he was no dragonrider. But he stared at his friend, and wondered what the reality of Thread fighting was like. F'lon was as raw as a weyrling; he'd drilled, but had never before _flown_ Thread. What if he ended up scored? What if he ended up _dead_? The man had purposely flown his dragon in the middle of a lightening storm!

But that wasn't something Robinton could voice without insulting F'lon deeply, deeply enough that the strain Robinton felt on his end from the withholding of knowledge might be met by equal strain that F'lon might feel, having his ability as a dragonrider criticized by a mere Harper. The two strains might cause an irreconcilable rift.

Robinton looked away and conceded the point. Then he looked up again at the Weyrwoman. "Will my presence sitting on this wall watching the mobilization undermine the Weyr's effort at fighting Thread?" he asked. He wasn't really asking the question his words spelled out however. It was laughable to think his mere presence sitting on the stone fence would cause any issues, cause any injuries or deaths, like he was some sort of living hex. Lessa didn't look like a woman to give in to superstition. He just wanted to know if she would use his question as an excuse to withhold information from him, as an excuse to win this battle.

She did. "Yes," she said, firmly, purposely. F'lon continued to say nothing at all.

Robinton unfolded and slid off of the wall, brushing his pants off as he did so. There was a small tear on the hindmost part of his right flank. "Very well. Shall I go to the quarters assigned to me?"

"Yes, Harper," Lessa said.

Robinton gave a bow, exactly the amount a lowly Harper Journeyman should bow to the senior Weyrwoman of Benden Weyr, which meant he folded himself over very far indeed, and then turned heel and strode back towards the more crowded bowl entrance.

"We'll let you know once the fall is over," Lessa called after him.

_We will let you know when you can come out._

He didn't reply.

* * *

F'lon joined him absently in his quarters sometime around dusk, smelling of firestone and sweat and looking a little wild around the eyes. Robinton was sitting in one of the chairs, his feet up on the table, and his gitar thrumming softly to itself under his fingers. He watched as F'lon set his helmet down on the table, along with his gloves. There was a part of him that wanted to sit here and sullenly continue to play his gitar without acknowledging the man, but he couldn't bear to be so petty to a man who was both his friend, and who had just gotten back from risking his life fighting thread to protect the _world_.

So he tucked that sullen little part of himself away, like a bit of candy in his cheek to suck on later, and took his boots off of the table and nudged one of the chairs out with his foot. "You look like you need something to eat, something to _drink_, and a good night's sleep. In that order."

F'lon waved it vaguely away. "They put me in the Queen's wing. I'm fine."

"The Queen's wing?"

"Queens can't flame; they do mop-up with flamethrowers. It's not _real_ thread fighting."

F'lon probably didn't realize how his words sounded, Robinton reflected, as the man stared into space, because he generally would never be the type to look down upon any dragon's place in the Weyr. Still, it was funny...F'lon, who had held a firmer belief in thread than anyone else Robinton had ever known, dragonrider and non-dragonrider, was regulated to the mop-up crew on his first time fighting thread. Robinton offered a chuckle, in sympathy. It was the wrong thing to offer, because F'lon exploded.

"They put Simanith and I with the queens! We're a full grown bronze pair, we have been _out_ of training for _Turns,_ I'm a bloody _wingleader_ for Faranath's sake, and they put us in with the _Queens?!_ F'lar _is my son_ and they put _us_ so low in the fall we should have just been hauling firestone with the weyrlings in the Weyr!"

Robinton blinked. F'lar was...well, the relation was obvious but Robinton hadn't expected it to be so...direct. "F'lar is--"

"Ha! So that's something Master Too-Quick-For-My-Own-Good Harper over here didn't pick up?" F'lon said sarcastically, seeing his surprise.

The other man was obviously in the grip of some strong emotion, so Robinton didn't add fuel to the fire by responding to that.

"He's my _son_," F'lon continued. "So is the other one, F'nor. I have _sons_." He looked completely baffled at that. "Did you know that F'nor--" he stopped, and gave Robinton a sidelong glance. "Well, you've already figured everything else out, why should I make it _easy_ for you?"

"What did F'nor do?" Robinton asked, because it seemed required of him.

Another sidelong glance. Then F'lon shook his head to himself. "Oh, what does it matter--how long have you known? It's all gone 'fruit-shaped now."

"I don't know anything about F'nor," Robinton said.

"No, I mean...I was talking about _time_ and _thread_ when I said that. I meant...F'nor flew to the Red Star. He went _between_ to the Red Star. There! Now you know."

Robinton stared at his friend. "What did he _do_ there?"

"I don't know, we haven't gone into details. It was just...the physical resemblances...once they told me about _betweening_ time, I knew they were related to me." He shot Robinton a sheepish half-grin. "Not all dragonriders can handle it, or want to do it, but I wanted to _be_ a father, you know. I was fostered, and that was fine with me, and yet..." he shook his head. "And they're _grown!_ They're older than us...how strange is that?"

Robinton tried to think of how he would feel upon gaining two sons he'd never known he had...or rather, sons he was going to have in the future...and wondered if he would do any better than F'lon was of processing it. Of course, for all he knew, perhaps he _did_ have offspring, somewhere...he might like a little girl or something, come to think of it...

"I think it was your mother. You're lucky you have her. I want to be as good a father to mine as she is a mother to you, when the time comes."

"They just told you all of this?" Robinton asked gently.

"What? Oh no. I've known for a while, days. It's just that...well, you've figured it out now. No use in not saying anything. But the little bastard could have put me into an actual fighting wing..."

Robinton put his gitar back in its case, and looked through some of the cabinets in the room until he found some cheap-looking wine from a minor winecrafting hall is tastebuds had less than fond recollections of. However, no matter the taste, it would probably do the trick, and he poured a glass for the other man, and kept it full as the dragonrider gradually shed the rest of his riding gear and tucked into the meal that Robinton hadn't touched due to nerves after essentially telling off the Benden Weyrwoman.

"I notice you're not drinking this toxic vinegar drink," F'lon said, draining his glass.

"If we're both drunk off our arses, who'll tuck you into bed when you're so quashed you can't see straight?" Robinton said with a grin.

"I _never_ get that drunk."

"I'll give you a mark if you can make it back to your rooms and into bed without tilting," Robinton offered.

"Ha. I need to bathe first. And you...why did you give those pants back? To make a point?"

Robinton shook his head. "Yes. No. Does it really matter?"

"Probably not; I don't think I've _ever_ heard you mouth off like that. Not even to your father, and you came pretty close that one time."

"Difficult as it is to reason with my father sometimes, he's never willingly left me in the dark on anything _truly_ important," Robinton said. "He acts _unconsciously_, not consciously." He snorted. "Am I in for it?"

"Well, I've _also_ never seen you bow so _low_ before. Maybe she _likes_ that sort of thing. I don't know. They're very, very upset, but I don't think they're going to waste it on anything overt. I mean, you're an intelligent man--you know they're upset, right? Right. And they know you know it. That's a punishment in itself, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But...ultimately...you're a Harper, worst they could do is boot you back to the Harper Hall, unless the MasterHarper consents."

"But I'm here because the Harper Hall wants me here," Robinton said. "You could almost say it's a posting."

"That could change, couldn't it?" F'lon offered.

"I don't know. I'm not actively Harpering."

"You Harper on reflex, Rob. That's the problem."

Robinton felt the anger stirring again--he didn't see how wanting to be kept informed was a "problem". But nor did he want to provoke a man who had been emotional before, and was now likely drunk, despite his verbal coherence. So instead he didn't answer, and they were quiet for a while, until Simanith flew into the weyr connected to Robinton's quarters, and started to settle down for the night.

"It's the other one, Simanith," F'lon said.

The movement in the weyr stopped, but there was a clear sigh a moment later. Then sound as the dragon moved from one weyr to the other, grumbling to himself as he did so.

"I need a bath," F'lon said again. "We'll talk in the morning, all right?"

Robinton didn't reply at first, he just watched as the other man left his quarters--leaving his riding gear on the table and chair--headed for the bathing room. Finally, when the other man was long gone and the door closed, he leaned over and closed the case around his gitar, securing it tightly. "Maybe."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Out of the gutter! Geeze, the lot of you...I know you were thinking it...


	7. Discontinued

This version of _The Skyboom_ has been discontinued. Please view my profile to see the new and improved version! This version will no longer recieve any updates.


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